In My Father's Study

After his father's death, anthropologist Ben Orlove received the gift of a lifetime -- a study full of his father's papers. As Orlove sifted through sixty years' worth of photos, passports, diaries, news clippings, letters, postcards, and artwork, the richness and complexity of his father's life is gradually revealed to him. Orlove's father, a Russian Jew who emigrated to the U.S. in 1921, is revealed to the reader through the son's slow & loving examination of his father's own words, correspondence & artwork. Rather than present his father's life in strict chronology, Orlove explores different facets of his father's life through overlapping chapters that examine his father's relationship with others (such as mother, father, brother, wife, and artists-friends) and his lifelong effort to create art. Both the son -- and the reader -- come to know the father in a gradual, organic way, just as we come to know someone over long years of connection & caring. While Orlove's father is being revealed to us, the author is also revealing his growing understanding of the man who was his father and of those parts of his father that live on in the son. The book's liberal use of photographs and the father's artwork adds even more depth and richness to this book's portrayal of Orlove's father. Few of us have the opportunity to look so deeply into a parent's mind, heart and soul. This book is a rich journey that ultimately prompts the reader to think about what we might find in our own father's study...